Useless
by Dark Satirist
Summary: What does excuse him is the bullet you put in his spine. The overwhelming agony of watching his best friend and his sister walk away and vanish excuses him. The realization there was nothing he could do for anyone, that you were his greatest failure; that he tried harder with you than with anyone else and you left him the first chance you got excuses him. Rated for language.


_Hey all. So, this is just a short little something I wrote after the airplane clip was released for DoFP. So, keep in mind that this pulls directly from that, so if you haven't seen it, you probably won't really know what's going on. _

**Useless**

"He felt useless."

Erik started at the sound of Hank's voice in the utterly silent plane. He was standing in the middle of the plane, with Hank in the cockpit. The bastard Logan had disappeared to find Charles, after muttering something about the future Erik being a jackass.

Hank had peered his head out of the cockpit's door, obviously sensing that things had quieted down since Erik's outburst earlier.

"Come again?" Erik demanded, not in the mood for a lecture or disapproving looks. He was more than justified for what he had said to Charles. The man had given up everything he once believed in and it made Erik physically sick.

Hank shoved his glasses up his nose. "After you—after Cuba," he began. "Charles tried everything to help. He started a school for mutants so the youngest ones wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. He soothed things over with the CIA for a while. Hell, he even managed to make your life easier from afar, not that you ever fucking noticed."

There had been a few times during Erik's merry, murderous rampage around the country that he had no idea how the hell he had escaped. Was it possible—_no_, he told himself firmly. Charles had given up on the mutant cause completely.

"Where has he been lately?" Erik challenged, his anger rising to the surface once more. "Where was he when Angel died? Or Emma was captured and tortured? Or when Sean was murdered?"

Hank took off his headset and stood up, his dark eyes yellowing. "You left Charles a broken man on that beach," he growled, blue slowly beginning to take over his face. "He did everything in his power to help, but you _broke _him, Erik. And you kept breaking him, too, over and over, long after Cuba. Every newscast we heard, every time we picked up a fucking newspaper, there you were, splashed all over the headlines, fucking everything up. You know, it's your fault the school was closed. The government feared the worst about Charles' school for mutants because of _you_ and took it from him."

Erik swallowed hard, refusing to back down. "It doesn't excuse him going into hiding," he said harshly. "He could have been by my side; we could have stopped _all _of this."

"No, Erik," Hank returned. "What does excuse him is the bullet _you_ put in his spine. The overwhelming agony of watching his best friend and his sister walk away and _vanish_ excuses him. The realization there was nothing he could do for anyone, that you were his greatest failure; that he tried harder with you than with anyone else and you left him the first chance you got excuses him."

"I never asked him for anything," Erik spat.

A furry blue fist came out of nowhere and collided with his face. Erik swore as he looked back to Hank, tasting blood.

His powers reacted instinctively. A metal coil was wrapped around Hank's throat, arms, and legs, effectively trapping the beast.

Fierce yellow eyes glared up at Erik. "I'm not afraid of you," Hank hissed, his voice a whisper from the pressure the coil was putting on his throat. "You can kill me now, but it won't change the facts. You were the one who abandoned Charles."

Erik growled. "I was doing my duty," he replied. "I was protecting the mutants."

"Protecting them from what?" Hank gasped.

"You were there on the beach that day. You saw what the humans did to us."

Hank struggled harder against the metal coiling. "I saw frightened men not understanding what was happening," he got out. "And I saw you condemning them for that. You never even gave them a chance."

"They were going to kill us," Erik said.

"And you gave them every reason to."

The words came, not from Hank who was moments away from passing out, but from across the cabin. Erik turned, his powers lessening on the coils as he faced Charles once again.

"I-."

"Release Hank," Charles ordered. "He's the only one that can fly this thing."

To the untrained eye, it looked as though the former telepath was completely under control. Only Erik knew better, having spent months committing every little movement the other man made to memory. He could see the anger and frustration boiling underneath the ridiculously long hair and obnoxious beard, just itching to break free.

Erik made a stupid decision in that moment to make it.

"Tell me," he demanded.

Charles brought his gaze to meet Erik's, his icy blue glare bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "if looks could kill."

"What?" he asked, his voice clipped and short.

"Tell me why you gave up your powers," Erik replied. "Was placating the humans really that important to you?"

He felt immense satisfaction when Charles' jaw clenched and his hand curled into a fist.

"You know me well enough to know that isn't the truth," the brunette replied shortly.

"Raven always did say that you wanted to become one of them," Erik returned. "Looks like you got your wish."

"Do you think this is what I wanted?" Charles demanded, his voice dangerously soft. "Do you think I wanted my powers to vanish? Do you think I wanted the world to hunt me down simply because of a mutation in my DNA? Do you think I wanted you-" He stopped abruptly and took a deep breath. "If there was any way for me to have both my legs and my powers, I would have both. But as I am completely fucking useless in that chair, I will have to make do without my powers."

There was such bitterness and self-hatred in his voice that it momentarily made Erik pause in his quest to make Charles hate him. It reminded the metal bender that Charles had once been a friend, and was very obviously suffering, even ten years after the initial incident.

The two former friends stared at each other for the longest time, tortured blue eyes looking deep into conflicted green. For the briefest of moments, Erik wanted to apologize for everything, to fix what had broken between them. He realized then that he missed Charles.

The plane shuddered violently, breaking the spell as Charles was sent tumbling to the floor. Erik instinctively dove to protect him, magnetizing both of them to the floor.

Hank let out a fierce growl and broke free of his metal confines, sprinting for the cockpit as the plane shook brutally once more.

There were a few tense minutes of aggressive swearing and plane rolling as Hank fought to control the plane. Erik reached out with his powers in attempts to help. The aircraft settled.

Charles looked up at Erik, his blue eyes torn between anger and gratitude.

"You can get off me now," he said quietly.

Erik hesitated, wanting to say something and realizing that he had nothing to say. He gave up and pushed himself off the floor.

He reached a hand out to Charles to help the other man up, but Charles pushed him away, pulling himself up with one of the chairs.

"Charles," Erik began.

"This changes nothing between us," Charles said coldly. He straightened his posture. "Now, if you and Hank could manage not to kill each other, that would be bloody brilliant."

He disappeared out of the main cabin before Erik could say another word.


End file.
